Transient thermo-mechanical analysis for bimorph soft robot based on thermally responsive liquid crystal elastomers

Thermally responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) hold great promise in applications of soft robots and actuators because of the induced size and shape change with temperature. Experiments have successfully demonstrated that the LCE based bimorphs can be effective soft robots once integrated with soft sensors and thermal actuators. Here, we present an analytical transient thermo-mechanical model for a bimorph structure based soft robot, which consists of a strip of LCE and a thermal inert polymer actuated by an ultra-thin stretchable open-mesh shaped heater to mimic the unique locomotion behaviors of an inchworm. The coupled mechanical and thermal analysis based on the thermo-mechanical theory is carried out to underpin the transient bending behavior, and a systematic understanding is therefore achieved. The key analytical results reveal that the thickness and the modulus ratio of the LCE and the inert polymer layer dominate the transient bending deformation. The analytical results will not only render fundamental understanding of the actuation of bimorph structures, but also facilitate the rational design of soft robotics.

Numerical Predictions of the Effective Thermal Conductivity of the Rigid Polyurethane Foam

A reconstruction method is proposed for the polyurethane foam and then a complete numerical method is developed to predict the effective thermal conductivity of the polyurethane foam. The finite volume method is applied to solve the 2D heterogeneous pure conduction. The lattice Boltzmann method is adopted to solve the 1D homogenous radiative transfer equation rather than Rosseland approximation equation. The lattice Boltzmann method is then adopted to solve 1D homogeneous conduction-radiation energy transport equation considering the combined effect of conduction and radiation. To validate the accuracy of the present method, the hot disk method is adopted to measure the effective thermal conductivity of the polyurethane foams at different temperature. The numerical results agree well with the experimental data. Then, the influences of temperature, porosity and cell size on the effective thermal conductivity of the polyurethane foam are investigated. The results show that the effective thermal conductivity of the polyurethane foams increases with temperature; and the effective thermal conductivity of the polyurethane foams decreases with increasing porosity while increases with the cell size.

An Effective Numerical Procedure to Determine Saddle-Type Unstable Invariant Limit Sets in Nonlinear Systems

A new technique that can efficiently approximate the attracting set of a nonlinear dynamical system is proposed under the framework of point mapping with the cell reference method.With the aid of the approximated attracting set,the difficulties encountered by the PIM-triple method and bisection procedure in finding trajectories on the stable manifolds of chaotic saddles in basins of attraction and on basin boundaries can be overcome well.On the basis of this development,an effective method to determine saddle-type invariant limit sets of nonlinear dynamical systems can be devised.Examples are presented for the purposes of illustration and to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed method.

Fluid-structure interaction simulation for multi-body flexible morphing structures

The multi-body flexible morphing airfoil can improve the aerodynamic characteristics based on different flight missions continuously.Recently researches have focused on the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of flexible wings under passive actuation.However,the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics with the fluid-structure interaction effects in the multi-body active actuation process of morphing airfoil deserve further investigation.In this paper,a fluid-structure coupled simulation method for multi-body flexible morphing airfoil with active actuation subsystem was investigated,and the aerodynamic characteristics during deformation were compared with different skin flexibility,flow field environment,actuation mode and actuation time.The numerical results show that for the steady aerodynamic,the skin flexibility can improve the stability efficiency.In the unsteady process,the change trend of the transient lift coefficient and pitching moment are consistent with those of the active drive characteristics,while the instantaneous lift-drag ratio coefficient is greatly affected by the driving mode and can be improved by increasing the driving duration.